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Thursday, January 19, 2017

HE Administration

I started this blog to normalise major corrections after a PhD viva corrections. It has then evolved with me wanting to confront issues such as failure in academia, leaving academia, and working in Higher Education as a professional, not an academic.

There is a huge lack of understanding both inside and outside the ivory tower about the role of professional services, and there is tension on both sides. Academics complain that administrations burden them with unnecessary extra work or while those in professional services may say that academics nitpick over minor points of committee papers, such as commas and semi-colons!

Of course, I am being reductive to make a point. And by-and-large the two sides realise that they both need and help each other. But I still want to campaign for a greater appreciation of administrative staff. For example, Oxford is one of the most expensive cities to live in the UK, and the problem of recruiting postdocs (esp. with families) is hard when 60% of income will go on rent. We hear this a lot as admin staff - more needs to be done to provide affordable housing, childcare, etc. All of this is absolutely true, but fails to address the problem that administrative staff on lower grades face exactly the same issues. But, their voices and their struggles are less promoted.

Now, we can't claim to change perceptions of value anytime soon, but we can take small victories as and when they arise. Yesterday I went on the Times Higher Education site which I do daily because I believe that it is important in my role to stay up-to-date with HE issues. I suspect that a large proportion of their readership are people like me - HE professionals - wanting to remain abreast of the news. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I went on the site to be asked to complete a survey question which asked whether I was:

A student

Becoming a student

An academic

Other

And I had to tick 'other' which I felt did a massive disservice to my role and my interest in Higher Education, devaluing the work that professionals do to keep the machinery of universities running. So I told the Times Higher Education via Twitter. And within a few hours it had been changed:

It is a small step but means a lot. HE professionals support the work of teaching and research undertaken by academics, and that contribution needs to be respected, not ignored.